ASHLAND  , a

city and the county-seat of Ashland county, Wisconsin, U.S.A., situated about 315 M . N.W. of Milwaukee, and about 70 M . E. of Superior and Duluth, in the N. part of the state, at the head of Chequamegon Bay, an arm of Lake Superior . Pop . (1890) 9956; (1900) 13,074, of whom 4417 were foreign-born; (191o, census) 11,J94 . It is served by the Chicago & North-Western, the Northern Pacific, the Chicago, St Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha, and the Wisconsin Central railways, and by several steamboat lines on the Great Lakes . The city is attractively situated, has a dry, healthful climate, and is a summer resort . It has a fine Federal building, one of the best high-school buildings in Wisconsin, the Vaughn public library (1895), a Roman Catholic hospital, and the Rinehart hospital, and is the seat of the Northland College and Academy (Congregational) . Ashland has an excellent harbour, has large iron-ore and coal docks, and is the principal port for the shipment of iron ore from the rich Gogebic Range, the annual ore shipment approximating 3,500,000 tons, valued at $12,000,000, and it has also an extensive export trade in lumber . Brownstone quarried in the vicinity is also an important export . The lake trade amounts to more than $35,000,000 annually . Ashland has large saw-mills, iron and steel rolling mills, foundries and machine shops, railway repair shops (of the Chicago & North-Western railway), knitting works, and manufactories of dynamite, sulphite fibre, charcoal and wood-alcohol .

In 1905 its

total factory product was valued at $4,210,265 .